Visage d'Enfants (1925) is a lengthy psychological study of the soul of a sensitive child

The first scene shows a majestic waterfall in a rural landscape.
The wife of the mayor of a small village dies, leaving behind two small
children, Jean and Pierrette. Jean, a sensitive boy, was very attached to her
and keeps praying to her and visiting her tomb. His father, though, is soon
ready to remarry. He eyes a good widow, Jean, who has a daughter, Arlette,
and has trouble paying her rent. The two decide to get married but the mayor
does not dare break the news to his son. He begs the priest to do it for him.
So the priest takes the boy with him on a journey. They spend a few days in another village and one day the priest breaks the news to the boy that his father
is getting married. There will be a new mother waiting for him when he goes back.
They start the trip back home and now everything looks different to Jean,
even his own home. When he arrives, Arlette is home alone and refuses to let
him in. His step-mother does her best to be accepted, but Jean is still
very attached to the memory of his mother. And he does not treat Arlette
like a sister: he and Pierrette play by themselves, and respond in kind
when Arlette tries to disrupt their games.
Jean hates Arlette so much that one night he encourages to go out alone
in the snow to look for a doll that she has lost. She gets caught in an
avalanche and finds shelter in a chapel, but the chapel is completely
buried in snow. A few hours later Jean feels guilty and confesses to his
parents.
The men of the village organize a search for the girl.
For the first time Jean cannot find consolation in his mother's portrait,
so he gets on his knees and prays.
They find her and save her. But Jean feels miserable. One day he decides
to leave. He bids goodbye to his sisters and walks towards the waterfall of
the first scene. He climbs a tree and then lets himself fall into the
roaring waters. His step-mother sees him in time and manages to stop his
body before the current takes him away. When he wakes up, he calls her "mom"
and the portrait of his biological mother smiles again.

Knight Without Armour/ Le Chevalier Sans Armure (1937) is another
historical fresco, but a rather tedious one, mixed with an even more tedious
and implausible love story.

At the very beginning of the film two characters meet briefly on a train but
they don't know each other: the gorgeous Russian countess Alexandra
(Marlene Dietrich), who is the daughter of a powerful politician,
and a young handsome British journalist.
They are both bound for Russia just before the start of World War I.
One day the journalist is summoned by the Russian police: they are fed up with
his reporting and they expel him from the country. He loves Russia and would
like to stay. An older British official hires him to become a spy. He grows
a beard and is given a Russian identity, Peter. Peter befriends a group of young
revolutionaries to understand what is going on. One of them tries to
assassinate Alexandra's father during Alexandra's wedding but is killed.
The police arrest Peter and deports him to Siberia. War is declared and
Alexandra's husband is a colonel of the Russian army.
Alexandra and Peter follow the events in two wildly different places.
Peter and his friend Axelstein, the leader of the revolutionaries, are exiled
to "the end of the world", while Alexandra lives comfortably in a huge mansion
of a sunny region.
Civil war erupts, leading to the return of the exiles.
Axelstein is appointed chairman of the soviet, and hires Peter as his assistant.
Alexandra's fortunes go in the opposite direction: the war makes her a widow,
and the civil war robs her of everything. A mob attacks her villa. The mob
would like to shoot her but Axelstein arrives in time with orders to transfer
to the capital. He assigns Peter, still posing as a faithful revolutionary,
as her escort. They are stranded in a train station where Peter saves her life
and falls in love with her. Peter helps her rejoin the army of the Whites,
who are fighting the revolutionaries. The general recognizes her and she is
restored to her aristocratic clothes and manners.
But the revolutionaries soon storm the headquarters of the general and capture
them all. Peter rescues her again and they flee through a forest, where they
make love. They eventually reach the masses that are trying to escape the
war and board an overcrowded train. They are stopped by the revolutionaries.
One of them recognizes the countess and would like to shoot her, but another
one falls in love with her and helps them escape again. They finally reach
a border town on a barge. She is sick and allow to leave on a train but he is
assigned to be shot. He manages to escape and a doctor helps him escape with
Alexandra on the train bound for the West.
Il realismo di Feyder consisteva in una descrizione minuziosa dell'ambiente, che
poteva essere tanto un sobborgo parigino del novecento quanto un villaggio seicentesco delle Fiandre.